being a hacker in the 80s or 90s must've been fun.

IT security was barely on people's minds. i remember doing a bit of mischief myself as a teenager in the 90s.

network stacks were so vulnerable you could often make them crash with a malicious packet. nobody used strong passwords. you could use a modem to dial random numbers to look for exposed modems connected to industrial equipment for remote control. if passwords were encrypted at all, the encryption was weak and nobody used salting.

i didn't know about all of these vulnerabilities at the time, but enthusiastic hackers probably did.